With the increasing popularity of mobile terminals that have a GPS (Global Positioning System) function in recent years, there is a growing demand for location information services that offer information relating to a user's current locality. A known general location information service that has been available for some time is a service whereby location information is reported from a GPS-equipped mobile terminal to a server, information on the current locality of this mobile terminal is retrieved on the server side, and the retrieved results are sent back to the mobile terminal.
The method shown in Patent Document 1 is a conventional example of a current locality information provision method in a content display apparatus that receives and displays a location information service. In this method, when a content search condition is transmitted to an information provision apparatus from a moving content display apparatus, information on content matching the specified search condition is transmitted from the information provision apparatus to the content display apparatus, an icon indicating the content location is displayed on a map shown on the screen of the content display apparatus, and when the user selects the icon on the map, content information is displayed.
Patent Document 2 describes a content display apparatus known as a car navigation apparatus. When deciding on a destination, this content display apparatus searches for facilities in the current locality, for example, displays a list of found facilities on the screen and also performs map scaling computation to allow all the listed facilities to be displayed on the map, and displays marks indicating the locations of the facilities on that scaled-down map.    Patent Document 1: Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. HEI 10-89976    Patent Document 2: Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2002-208019